Turkey asks support for United Nations Security Council bid

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met representatives from 80 countries Saturday in New York in a bid to gain support for Turkey's candidacy to become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2015. "Turkey is going into an international campaign after leaving a national election campaign behind," Davutoglu said at a press conference at UN headquarters. He was referring to the March 30 local elections in which the ruling AK Party received strong backing from voters.

Davutoglu said Turkey "had the support toward winning" membership as a result of its performance on the Security Council in 2009-10. "A country normally waits one or two decades to re-run for the membership," Davutoglu said. "Turkey is an exception in this sense. The minister, after meeting 54 representatives of African Union countries, said most of those nations had promised to support Turkey's bid for its fifth term on the council.

The Security Council elects 10 non-permanent members to two-year terms, during which they serve alongside the five permanent members. Turkey, which has been a member of the UN for nearly 70 years, has been elected four times.